Perquisite (musician)

In 1996, at the age of 14, Perquisite started making hip-hop beats. Due to his classical musical background he often incorporated classical and jazzy elements into his creations. In 2001 he started his own record label Unexpected Records and made his debut with the Outta Nowhere EP, in collaboration with Dutch jazz saxophonist Benjamin Herman. After this, he composed and produced another solo EP, Double Vision, which was released in 2002.[1]

In 2003 Perquisite started collaborating with Dutch rapper/MC Pete Philly, and together they had their breakthrough as the hip-hop duo Pete Philly & Perquisite.[2] They released two studio-albums, 'Mindstate' and 'Mystery Repeats' and toured around the world with their live band for five years straight. They played multiple festivals, including Lowlands,[3] North Sea Jazz[4] and Sziget.[5] Their studio album 'Mindstate' (2005) received a lot of critical acclaim, Talib Kweli stating; 'Musically, these guys are light years ahead of the game.'.[6] Studio album 'Mystery Repeats' (2007) came in second position in the Dutch album charts to stay there for 25 weeks.[7] Together Pete & Perq won multiple prizes, including the Dutch 'Silver Harp', and the 'Amsterdam Prize for the Arts'.[8] After more than 300 performances in and outside of the Netherlands, including providing the support act for James Brown and Kanye West, the duo ended their collaboration in the autumn of 2009 with a last 'Final Celebration Tour'.[9]

In 2009 Perquisite won a Golden Calf (Dutch: Gouden Kalf),[10] (which is the award of the Netherlands Film Festival) for composing the music for the film 'Carmen van het Noorden'. After this, Perquisite composed the music for several Dutch feature films, amongst them 'Hartenstraat' (2014), 'Brasserie Valentijn' (2016), 'Huisvrouwen Bestaan Niet' (2017) and 'Niemand In De Stad' (2018). For the latter he received another Gouden Kalf nomination.

Right after his first film music assignment, Perquisite started working on his solo album 'Across', that saw its release in October 2010. On 'Across' Perquisite collaborated with twelve different Dutch vocalists, among them Torre Florim (De Staat), Cato van Dijck (My Baby) and Janne Schra.

In 2012 Perquisite met singer Kris Berry at a weekly jam session in Amsterdam. They started writing songs together and decided to release an album. Joint effort 'Lovestruck Puzzles'[11] was released in September 2013 via Unexpected Records.[12]

Late 2015 Perquisite was invited to function as a judge for performances by students at the Conservatory in Enschede. There he first met Jeangu Macrooy, with whom a musical collaboration kicked off. Jeangu was signed to Unexpected Records and his debut EP 'Brave Enough', produced by Perquisite, was released in April 2016.[13] The next year debut album 'High On You' was released, which was nominated for the Edison Pop in the category 'Best Album', followed by Jeangu's second album 'Horizon'. Both were produced and co-written by Perquisite. Besides this, both Dutch submissions for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 and Eurovision Song Contest 2021, Jeangu Macrooy's 'Grow' and 'Birth Of A New Age', were produced by Perquisite. The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was cancelled due to Covid-19; the reason why Jeangu Macrrooy participated twice. 'Birth Of A New Age' was written and produced by Jeangu Macrooy and Perquisite and was picked up by the New York Times.

Besides his career as an artist/producer/composer, Perquisite has been running his own record label Unexpected Records since 2001. He has also been responsible for the management of Pete Philly & Perquisite and Kris Berry & Perquisite and is currently managing Jeangu Macrooy. Also, he was a member of the board of Dutch copyright organisation BUMA/STEMRA from 2013 until 2018.[14] In 2015 Perquisite and a number of other musicians (including Tjeerd Bomhof, Torre Florim and Arriën Molema) established BAM!, the Dutch Songwriters Society, for which he became the first chairman, from 2015 until 2020.[15]

Also check out Discography Pete Philly & Perquisite.